Discovery Channel – On the Inside: The Leaning Tower of Pisa (2009)

The so-called Leaning Tower of Pisa (leaning tower, or simply called the tower of Pisa) is the campanile of the cathedral of Pisa, in the famous Piazza del Duomo in the same name is its most famous monument because of the characteristic slope.

This is a bell of its own, about 56 meters high and built over two centuries, between the twelfth and fourteenth. It weighs 14,453 tons, dominated by curved line, with rounds of six floors of blind arches and loggias. Its slope is due to a slight land subsidence occurred early in the construction. The inclination of the building currently measures 5 ° 30 ‘axis verticale.La tower of Pisa is in equilibrium because the vertical line passing through its center of gravity falls within the base.

Work began on August 9, 1173 that, according to the Pisan calendar, was the 1174, since the year began on March 25. As he used to do with the headlights, and the buildings adjacent to the sea in general, the foundations were left to rest for a whole year.

Some of the most recent studies attribute the paternity of the project Diotisalvi, which at the same time was building the Baptistery. The similarities between the two buildings are many, from the type of foundations. Others suggest instead Gherardi, while according to Vasari the work was begun by Bonanno Pisano. Vasari’s thesis is based on the discovery near the tower of a gravestone with the name of the Bonanno, who now stands in the atrium side of the tower, also in the nineteenth century was always found near a piece of epigraphic material rose, probably a calculated on a metal plate which was melted, which now finds its place on the jamb of the entrance of the building. On this piece we read, obviously upset, “citizen named Bonanno Pisano. That probably was cast on the port director of the Cathedral, destroyed during the fire of 1595.

The first phase of the work was stopped midway through the third floor, because of subsidence of the land on which stands the base of the tower. The softness of the ground, consisting of soft clay normalconsolidata, is the cause of the slope of the tower and, although to a lesser extent, of all the buildings in the square. Work resumed in 1275 under the guidance of Giovanni di Simone and Giovanni Pisano, adding to the building above three storeys. In an attempt to straighten the tower, added three floors tend to bend in the opposite direction to the slope. The tower was completed in the middle of the next century, adding the belfry.

Since its construction to date the drop is substantially increased, but over the centuries there were also long periods of stability or even reduction of the slope. In the last decades of the twentieth century, the inclination has been a marked increase so that the danger of the collapse had become concrete. In 1993 the shift from the top of the axis at the base was estimated at approximately 4.47 meters .

During the recent work of consolidation began in 1990 and ended in late 2001, the slope of the tower has been reduced through some hoops plans, temporary attachment of steel rods and balances of lead (up to 900 tonnes) and sottoescavazione, reestablishing that presumably would have 200 years ago. The base has also been supported and experts say this will keep safe the tower for at least another three centuries, thus allowing access to visitors.

Since February 2008, the tower has reached the final level of consolidation in terms of tilt, once again become of 3.99 meters and that value should remain unchanged for at least another 300 years. The success of this operation is linked to the name of Michele Jamiolkowski, worthy teacher of the Polytechnic of Turin and President of the International Committee for the Safeguard of the Tower of Pisa from 1990 to 2001, that of Carlo Viggiani, a professor in the Department of Geotechnical Engineering ’s University of Naples Federico II and President of the International Committee for the Preservation of Monuments and Historical Sites and to that of J. B. Burland, professor of the Department of Civil Engineering at Imperial College London.

There currently are held the work of restoration of stone surfaces in both the external and interior, which should be completed by 2010.

The structure of the tower incorporates two rooms. A behind the tower, known as the Hall of the fish, because of a bas-relief depicting a fish. This room has no ceiling, being in fact the cable tower. The other is the belfry, in the seventh ring. Bounded by the walls of the upper walkway, is also open and the center, through an opening, you can see the ground floor of the tower. There are also three flights of stairs by a continuous basis until the sixth ring, where you exit outside, one, the smaller spiral that leads from the sixth to the seventh ring, and finally an even smaller, more spiral, which leads the seventh ring at the top.It has been proposed as one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

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